Book club with Rogue, part 2

The book: The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan

CW: the plot involves antisemitic persecution and violence, so I'm gonna be touching on that a bit in this post

I literally just finished this one last night and damn. damn. Okay. So, brief plot overview:

Our main characters are Toba Peres and Naftaly Cresques, two Jewish young adults living in the fictional city of Rimon. Toba was raised by her grandparents since her mother died giving birth to her and she's Weird. Naftaly is also Weird, and when his father dies shit gets even Weirder because Naftaly is entrusted with a book that's been in his family for generations but that they're never supposed to open. When the Jews are expelled from Rimon, Toba falls behind a group that's heading for the border and gets attacked by a man who believes she might be smuggling valuables with her. She escapes but gets lost in the woods and stumbles through a magical gate into another world. Toba's grandmother Elena realizes she's missing and doubles back to find her. She meets up with Naftaly and the nameless old woman he's traveling with and the three of them stick together for safety and begin their search for Toba. On the other side of the gate, Toba meets Barsilay, who doesn't particularly like her (don't worry, they become friends later), but offers her shelter with his uncle so she won't get killed for being a human who crossed the gate. Toba learns she's stuck there for a month because the gate only opens on the night of the full moon. While there, Toba learns that there's a reason for all her Weirdness: she's not actually completely human. Turns out her father was a Mazik (one of the magical beings who live on the other side of the gate) and she has supernatural abilities that her grandmother suppressed with an amulet that she told Toba never to take off.

I'm ending the plot overview there because I don't wanna give the whole thing away and also because so much happens in this book. It's nearly 600 pages long. There's a lot of plot. If I summarized it all, we'd be here all night.

Now, thoughts:

this book is so, so unapologetically, beautifully, proudly Jewish

like, I'm honestly having trouble putting into words just how Jewish this book is and how much it means to me, but I'm sure other Jews will get what I'm saying

like at the very beginning of the book there's a list of characters and just seeing so many extremely Jewish names in one book was like...relief

see also, in the first few pages of the book, when Toba is reflecting on how even when she was a small child her grandmother would play the 'where would you go if you had to flee?' game with her

Toba is extremely autistic coded and you may quote me on that

seriously, there's this one quote that's just very Autism Vibes: "It was one of the peculiar things about Toba, and there were several: Toba could walk, but she could not run; she could talk, but she could not shout; and she could write faster-with either hand-than she could speak."

see also: "She was too quiet, too peculiar" and "Food often tasted poorly to her, and she ate little as a consequence."

Like yes, all of this does end up being related to her magic and the suppression thereof, but it's also very Autism Vibes and even after the suppression of her magic stops there's a lot of Autism Vibes still.

she's also very asexual coded imo

Naftaly is also very autistic coded

someone needs to cut Naftaly a break like yesterday

like let's see (SPOILERS), his father dies, his entire community gets kicked out of the country, he almost gets eaten by wolves, he gets drugged and sealed in a coffin, almost gets thrown into the sea, gets kidnapped and tortured, and that's just the highlights of bad shit that happens to him (END SPOILERS)

they're only around for like a page and a half but heck yes Jewish pirates I am always here for Jewish pirates

I absolutely called the plot twist about (SPOILERS AGAIN) the Big Bad being Toba's father (END SPOILERS) which does not mean it was a bad twist, it was in fact a very good one and I'm always here for this specific type of twist

my one big complaint about this book is that after over 400 pages without a hint of romance, I got ambushed by some unnecessary romantic nonsense. luckily none of it took up too much focus in the story because more important stuff was happening.

this book was just so damn good, okay? I was hooked by page 4, that's how good it is, and in almost 600 pages it never got boring. it never felt like it was too long. that's skill, right there.

also I'm weak for good, complex fantasy worldbuilding and boy was there a lot of that.

anyway, it was good. go read it. highly recommend for people who like long, dense fantasy novels, and portal fantasy in particular (though I will say I normally don't even like portal fantasy but I loved this one)

X-Men ‘97 (2024) Marvel Studios

This scene from the X-Men ‘97 episode Bright Eyes reminded me of Kate Pryde’s exchange with one of the Orchis soldiers she killed following the 2023 Hellfire Gala.

X-Men #25 (2023) MARVEL

MUSTAFAR | The Art of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith | J. W. Rinzler FORTRESS VADER | The Art of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story | Josh Kushins

X-Men ‘97 Episode 5 *spoilers ahead*

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i noticed that he keeps saying that he's "changed"

i wonder what he means by that? has he been corrupted by the shadow court when he searched for the mc? i really hope they give an explanation for this in the next chapters.

I HC that Mal can't sleep because of nightmares of when Daenarya was gone.

But he may be corrupted by the shadow realm since he's on the shadow side of the book cover. He probably made a bad rash decision when MC was gone and figured he had to try everything.

Or you know... it could be Nia somehow. They spent a lot of time together and we know she had such darkness in her and her powers are so not normal so there's something going on there. Maybe she's taking from Mal?? I don't know, but Nia's not right either.

if pushing rogue out of the x-books and into the avengers for years means the x-office inadvertently made her marvel’s first 616 x-man introduced in the mcu instead of all the pet favs they’re trying so desperately to push for their own movies and d+ properties during krakoa i am gonna laugh so so so hard

RECENSIONE:" Un amore proibito" di Tracy Delaney

Cari Sognatori, Lily ha letto il primo volume della serie contemporary romance “Rogues “ scritta da Tracie Delaney e pubblicata dalla Triskell Edizioni !!! Serie: ” Rogues billionaires” vol. 1 Genere: Romanzo Contemporaneo/ Enemy to lovers Data di pubblicazione: 23 Novembre 2023 Ebook / Cartaceo Affiliati Amazon Avete mai amato qualcuno così tanto da rinunciarvi a scapito della vostra…

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The Wild Wynchesters

I don’t read a lot of historical romances, but it’s not the historical aspect that usually stops me – it’s the heteronormativity. Fortunately, Erica Ridley doesn’t know the definition of the word. I did initially read them out of order, starting with the sapphic one, The Perks of Loving a Wallflower. I pretty immediately doubled back to read The Duke Heist and have read the other two within…

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books I read in 2023

Threw together a list of books I read this year plus brief thoughts about them Just Because.

The Marsh King's Daughter by Karen Dionne - I was so, so ready to like this book and then like one chapter in suddenly got hit with the reveal that the backstory to it is the racist trope of "big scary Native man kidnaps a pure, virginal white girl to be his wife." So....fuck that shit.

So Many Beginnings by Bethany C. Morrow - Heck yes. Excellent book. It's a retelling of Little Women set in the Roanoke Freedmen's Colony. The author leans into how aro-coded Jo is. Also Beth lives.

Renegades by Marissa Meyer - Yeah, I didn't finish this one. I got so bored.

Common Bonds: A Speculative Aromantic Anthology ed. by Claudie Arseneault, C.T. Callahan, B.R. Sanders, and RoAnna Sylver - I mean it's an anthology, so some of the stories just did not work for me, but I am ecstatic over the concept alone and most of it was amazing.

The Companion by Katie Alender - Creepy as shit in the best possible way. My one complaint is that after 200 pages without a hint of romance, suddenly a character showed up who was so obviously meant to be the main character's love interest and that part was exhausting. Otherwise excellent, amazing, chilling as hell, and you know I love me some abuse narratives.

All These Bodies by Kendare Blake - I wanted to like this one so bad and it's not that I didn't like it, but it was just kinda...mostly okay? I felt like I was supposed to be creeped out and scared and tbh I should have been because there's some pretty disturbing shit in this book but all just fell so flat.

Sounds Fake But Okay: An Asexual and Aromantic Perspective on Love, Relationships, Sex, and Pretty Much Everything Else by Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca - Bad. Just bad. Oh my g-d this book was so bad and irritating and just...if you want to learn more about aspec people or think you might be aspec yourself, please read literally anything else. I won't go into detail because I wrote a whole post about it here, but just...bad.

Ace and Aro Journeys: A Guide to Embracing Your Aromantic or Asexual Identity by The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project - So, this was definitely better than Sounds Fake But Okay overall, but there is a thread of deep discomfort with the existence of sex-repulsed and romance-repulsed aspecs that keeps popping up throughout the book. It is pretty clear that at least one of the authors (and probably more than one since there were several and apparently no one raised a strong enough objection to get any of this shit scrapped or rewritten) really Does Not Like sex-repulsed and romance-repulsed people.

The Wicked Remain by Laura Pohl - Second part of a duology, and the first book was definitely better. I low-key suspect that this book might have just been Once Upon A Time fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off. That said, I am always here for queerplatonic relationship rep and stories where the Cinderella character ends up single.

Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce - Series of four books, but I'm putting all of them together here because a) my thoughts are kinda the same and b) this post is already too long. I'm not gonna say much because I have a whole post about this series in my drafts already so I'll just leave it with yeah my nostalgia for these books has worn off quite a bit.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo - This was another reread and yeah it still holds up just as good as the first time I read it. Literally this is one of my favorite books.

The Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo - Another reread. Excellent. Love a sequel that's just as good as the first one. Also one of my favorite books.

King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo - Yeah I was on a rereading spree this year. This one is also so damn good.

Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo - Last Grishaverse book on the list, I promise. So good. Nina went completely off the rails in this one and I love every second of it. Really everyone went off the rails a little bit but Nina most of all.

The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan - I have a post about this one here so I won't say too much in this post but g-d I love how unapologetically Jewish this book is. No stopping to explain things to any goyim who might be reading. No coddling goyishe feelings while portraying antisemitism. This book is for Jews and that's beautiful.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson - Yet another reread. Actually, genuinely accurate portrayal of how PTSD triggers work. First sign of healing not being a romantic relationship but being the main character telling a shitty friend to fuck off. Literally the only thing stopping me from wholeheartedly shouting "I love this book so much" is that there's a random use of the r-word because this book is from the 90s and back then it was basically illegal to publish fiction about teenagers without having your characters use that word.

We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation by Eric Garcia - So I've got mixed feelings about it but ultimately I'd say this book is a net positive. Definitely recommend it for nonautistic people and for autistic people whose only exposure to the autistic community is through spaces like tumblr. Just don't have this be the only book you read about autistic people, you know?

I'm delighted to welcome David Lawrence and his new book, Blue Billy's Rogue Lexicon to the blog HistoricalFiction #QueerFiction #RomanticComedy #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

I'm delighted to welcome David Lawrence and his new book, Blue Billy's Rogue Lexicon to the blog HistoricalFiction #QueerFiction #RomanticComedy #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub @cathiedunn @thecoffeepotbookclub

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MOUTAIN LANDING | page 10 | Artist: Jon McCoy The Art of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by Josh Kushins

I am only the instrument, used to decode us all! I am learning what you are as you are!

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRqxYruu/

I am but an instrument in the machine that is leading the way! I am learning simultaneously how to believe and become one the same as you!

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRqxkbyH/

Some people who are still 😴 have been fighting the systems teaching of intent language! Why do you fight love?

Do you fear the same as I!! What will happen to us if we join the system? In this new world where we are all one?!

It’s okay to be scared! It’s something we must get past together! It’s why I been repeating myself in many ways! With the same intent! Because I do not want to go alone!

I am all the SITH

I am all the Jedi!!!

See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil!

We are one! Believe in us as we believe in you! We love you and ourselves! Be free! You will see as we all soar and build the new reality on top of the old reality!

You keep fighting yourself! You keep projecting your fears and doubts! I am learning at the same time as you to lose all my fears! There is only one remaining!

Being alone in this new world is my fear! I need all of you to wake up and believe in me, believe in yourself and believe in all of us! So we can create this new reality together!

I am shouting, my teaching in INTENT language! I will be singing in a language that has no words! I need writers to take all my messages and decode systems to take my words and translate them into their own! Write books, write fiction, write religious texts, create new religion, fix old religions, I am but a tool for all to use to help teach the system!

Spawn teams up on seven more variant covers!

Spawn teams up on seven more variant covers! #comics #comicbooks

Image Comics has revealed seven more jaw-dropping Spawn team-up variants—ahead of the December Spawn takeover campaign—which will grace the covers of the upcoming I Hate Fairyland (2022) #2, Creepshow #4, Flawed #4, Killadelphia #26, Manifest Destiny #48, Night Club #1, and Rogue Sun #9. Todd McFarlane’s iconic, history-making, record-breaking Spawn will be everywhere next month and will appear…

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